How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink • Hacker News Board

Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink

#51

Post by mrosethompson » Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 9:33 PM UTC

randunel wrote: post #27

I don't get one thing. If only 18% of the tech graduates are women, why do people (see wsj articles and random blogs) complain about companies "gender imbalance"[1] (not hiring 50% women and 50% men)? Wouldn't that be positive discrimination? As this article states, 18.2% of the graduates are women, but only 15% of the employees share the same gender, so the gap is 3.2%. Personally, I don't consider that 3.2% as bein…

Not necessarily. I'm not presenting this as fact, but merely as a a possible situation and counterexample to what you describe:

Your reasoning would hold if you could assume identical skill distributions between men and women graduates. However, it seems somewhere between possible and likely that women graduates are of higher average skill than the men graduating. With so many barriers and cultural impedances for a woman pursuing tech, it takes at least the same skill (to pass the classes) as their male classmates, plus enough extra competency to ward off the detractors and skeptics that men don't have to deal with.

Again, I'm not saying this is reality, I certainly don't have the statistics to back it up. But it fits my experiences pretty well, and I think your analysis probably is too simplistic to be useful.

And, in regards to your second point, about starting much earlier: I absolutely agree. The more the culture changes, the less this will be an issue.

Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink

#52

Post by _bfhp » Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 9:35 PM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #47

_bfhp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most complex kinds of objects that chimpanzees craft are tools. To posit that a psychological propensity for pieces of jewelry (a human invention) is inborn in only women is extraordinary and reeks of post-hoc logic. To posit that it is cultural meme is obviously not. Do you not understand this intuitively? Are you being 100% honest with me?

I think you're fighting a strawman here. The "human invention" part is what led the other commenters to generalize from "jewelry" to "adornment", which is a more accurate expression of the idea anyway. In this theory, jewelry is only a close-to-hand vehicle for expressing deeper inborn urges, also satisfied by elaborate clothing, hairstyles, hats and head-dresses, war paint, etc. Further, it's not present only in wom…

Most of the world population is religious (or was for most of civilization's history, if the scales have tipped recently) -- perhaps we should assume that belief in God is inborn?

I will break it down if that doesn't suffice: Before women and men were women and men, they were girls and boys growing up in whatever cultural atmosphere they were born into; and every culture worldwide has a policy of showering newborn and infant girls with "adornment" while withholding it from boys. This is trivial observation -- I invite you to visit your nearest toystore (look at children on the boxes if you're having trouble) and report back to me otherwise.

Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink

#53

Post by judk » Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 9:37 PM UTC

randunel wrote: post #27

I don't get one thing. If only 18% of the tech graduates are women, why do people (see wsj articles and random blogs) complain about companies "gender imbalance"[1] (not hiring 50% women and 50% men)? Wouldn't that be positive discrimination? As this article states, 18.2% of the graduates are women, but only 15% of the employees share the same gender, so the gap is 3.2%. Personally, I don't consider that 3.2% as bein…

If women are discouraged from pursuing STEM, then the women who do graduate are expected to be a higher caliber of persistence, and perhaps other measures of ability, than the average male graduate. If the bottom half of women are culled before graduation, whike men are not so culled, then the women who do graduate would be comparable to top half of male graduates.

Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink

#54

Post by _bfhp » Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 9:37 PM UTC

thegeomaster wrote: post #50

_bfhp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, OP's claim that he has "the exact same problem" is a lie. There is danger in obfuscating the realities of being part of a social class.

Please elaborate.

I refuse to try to say something better than what has already been said if I feel I couldn't do a better job [1]

[1] http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/tbettch/Frye,%20Oppression...

Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink

#55

Post by thegeomaster » Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 9:37 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #46

thegeomaster wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people are different, and you're right that when something doesn't bother me doesn't mean that it shouldn't bother anyone else. But we need to draw a line where a "this bothers me" said by someone is actually meaningful and not oversensitivity. I think we can agree on that one, because a world where small and harmless statements that are in no way degrading can be deemed "offensive" by a very small group of peop…

"I still haven't heard someone say or allude that women, or a woman, is intrinsically less capable with tech-related crafts. " I got told that twice if I recall right. Once while in highschool and once by colleague. I also had a professor ask me why did I not studied field supposedly easier for women (it was before exam, he had no idea what I know and what I do not know). Then there were was assumption that I will ha…

I feel very uneasy when I hear stories like these. I just can't get into the heads of those people. It's as if I live in a different reality, I just cannot comprehend that. It's such a great pity if a woman gets discouraged from pursuing her goal because of those asswads.

I don't want to leave an impression of turning a blind eye to the problem. I did say that I believe there are people who think like that, but I have a lowly opinion of them.

Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink

#56

Post by taeric » Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 9:37 PM UTC

I find this quote interesting, "I'm very girly. My room is purple. I have floral bedding. I think I'll probably be a very feminine engineer. I just don't like the idea of being pigeonholed."

I don't necessarily like it when I'm incredibly pigeonholed, either. However, I'm genuinely at a loss as to the complaint of the title. If not pink, then what color? Would neon green suffice? What about puke? The article complained even about purple.

Now, mayhap I'm wrong and there really isn't some effort at market testing different designs. But, if there are, and it is showing that pink is working... should they stop? A few data points showing that "girly" color selection is bad does not indicate that it fails at large.

I say this as a man that likes the color pink. Used to have a few pink shirts that I wore so much they literally fell apart. Looking to get new ones. Do I wish more men were comfortable with pink? You bet. I genuinely cringe when I hear fellow parents bemoan their child's color choice. No matter what color it is. (Ok... I'll admit I would slightly regret puke green as a favorite color...)

For my hypothesis, if you want to get more women in technology, you should work on making men and women more comfortable working together. This is especially tough on the stereotypical "geek" male. Heck, we have a hard time working together period. Add a woman to the mix and most of us lose it big time. Is it any wonder more of them don't wish to join us?

Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink

#57

Post by judk » Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 9:40 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #39

jiggy2011 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original meaning of Diva "A diva is a celebrated female singer; a woman of outstanding talent in the world of opera, and by extension in theatre, cinema and popular music." (according to wikipedia) so very similar to "rockstar".

Yes, but that is not how it is used in everyday English. That word is not used too often of when it is, it does not refer to musical talent.

Snickers uses "diva" in its ads. The meaning there is "woman-like, and therefore unpleasant way for a man to behave."

As long as women are disrespected culture-wide, any female-gendered term will seem degrading from a male point of view.

Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink

#58

Post by tzs » Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 9:45 PM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #3

tzs wrote: post #2

> Last month, Google announced its plan to spend $50 million over the next three years encouraging young women to give coding a try. The website for the project features articles about inspiring women, like Erica Kochi, who leads UNICEF's Innovation Unit. The first item on a page of coding projects for girls to try is a 3-D-printed bracelet. > "It's insulting, not only because it's highly gendered, but also because i…

Where do you think female interest in jewelry comes from? Are you implying that interest in jewelry is inborn in women? You are begging the question. The professor is concerned with general culture's image of women, which is perpetuated when female programmers are shown to be printing pink jewelry and perpetually enraptured by childish flowery borders. The existence of individual women who enjoy jewelry for the aesth…

> Where do you think female interest in jewelry comes from? Are you implying that interest in jewelry is inborn in women? You are begging the question

I don't care where it comes from. Do you think that if a woman likes jewelry, she needs to justify it as some inborn attraction before it is acceptable?

Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink

#59

Post by andrewflnr » Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 9:49 PM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #41

andrewflnr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what's happening here, and in a lot of other cases, is that culture [0] tends to sieze on real (in this case IMO) asymmetries (girls care more about appearance than men) and blow it far out of proportion. I'm not justifying it, not even close; I find it horrifying. I'm saying that it has a seed in reality, mixed with a freight of repression and poorly-handled social revolutions, a beautiful thing corrupted. Y…

Should we assume that men have a natural tendency to cry a bit less because men cry less often? The articles are more strongly consistent with the theory of gender socialization -- that the media et al coerces girls to focus (obsess, kill themselves over,) appearance, and without it it would be impossible to say to what degree such a thing as actually "biological". The rational course of action is to assume an absenc…

Yes. Men are more concerned with being/appearing strong, again, re-inforced and exaggerated by cultural norms. This also makes us tend to buy relatively useless tools/toys like power tools and big trucks, to make us feel strong. IMO this is a close analogue to the common female concern with aesthetic adornment. Women mock us, justifiably, for the dominance contests we like to get into, stemming from the same desire to be strong.

Of course, women have their own analogues of our dominance contests. The deep fundamentals are the same, what differs is more our interpretation. Both sets of instincts stem from where we first look to power. Heck, they could just be subconscious logical deductions from the physical asymmetries between sexes, and the nature of our reproductive drives, but at that point the distinction almost doesn't matter, because it's still going to outlive any education campaign to stop it.

This all seems obvious to me. We already have abundant evidence of a fundamental difference, it's all around us. It seems a more elegant explanation than all this madness occurring with no trigger at all, which is the view you seem to advocate. I don't know what else I can say.

Re: How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink

#60

Post by _bfhp » Sun, Jul 06, 2014, 9:54 PM UTC

thegeomaster wrote: post #55

watwut wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I still haven't heard someone say or allude that women, or a woman, is intrinsically less capable with tech-related crafts. " I got told that twice if I recall right. Once while in highschool and once by colleague. I also had a professor ask me why did I not studied field supposedly easier for women (it was before exam, he had no idea what I know and what I do not know). Then there were was assumption that I will ha…

I feel very uneasy when I hear stories like these. I just can't get into the heads of those people. It's as if I live in a different reality, I just cannot comprehend that. It's such a great pity if a woman gets discouraged from pursuing her goal because of those asswads. I don't want to leave an impression of turning a blind eye to the problem. I did say that I believe there are people who think like that, but I hav…

Is it so hard to agree with the idea that you do in fact live in a different reality? You and I are naturally blind to what women experience. Doing deductive reasoning is impossible -- the best tool in developing a holistic understanding of sex-based systems of inequality is: listening to what women have to say. And doing inducive reasoning based on that data that you didn't have before. This is the case generally, not just in software engineering.