171–180 of 437 posts
This gem is in the comments: > The average programmer spends only about 30 percent of his/her time working alone. That's nowhere close to my figure. In fact, I can pretty much _only_ program alone. Individual investigation and discovery is most of the fun in the field.
> What really keeps women out of Tech? It is because they don't want to be there. The opportunity is there for everyone to take thus men and women. I actually think women have an advantage in this space and it is up to them to see it and advantage of it. As a woman, I am tired this. If you want it, go and get it. There shouldn't be any special treatment. Prove you deserve to be at the table, prove you deserve to be t…
By the time we all started working, it was further down to 90:10. My office recruited a lot of female grads, we had a female department head who positively discriminated. One of my first mentors was female. In that respect I think my early experience was atypical.
But they kept dropping out as time went on, transferring into different streams/jobs.
There are some things that need to be done - particularly at helping parents understand their school age girls like of STEM - but ultimately I don't think it's worth trying to socially engineer and entire field to be 50:50 when you'll struggle to find that many women who want to study it, learn it and work in it for decades.
> female students are more interested...if they are shown a classroom...decorated not with “Star Wars” posters, science-fiction books, computer parts and tech magazines, but with a more neutral décor > If the actor wore a T-shirt that said “I CODE THEREFORE I AM” and claimed to enjoy video games, the students expressed less interest in studying computer science than if the actor wore a solid shirt and claimed to enjo…
Best comment on this submission IMHO.
Making a subject more welcoming to folks who aren't actually interested in it just seems ridiculous. I wouldn't want a physician who doesn't actually care about bodies and biology; I wouldn't want my care designed by someone who isn't really into reliability, moments and materials; why would I want software written by someone who doesn't hunger and thirst to manipulate symbols and code?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've banned this account for breaking the HN guidelines.
Did he actually say something terrible, or did he just commit a thoughtcrime in public? In this sort of discussion, one never knows. I didn't see the original comment, so I have no idea. But, given the context of this discussion, I am concerned that there is a decent possibility that he wrote something not outrageous, but simply contrary to the current received wisdom of young Bay Area Californians.
If you don't believe me, you're welcome to go look, but it's not an experience I'd recommend.
(edit: It occurs to me that the last sentence is unclear as to whether I'm referring to showdead or MVM; the answer is 'yes')
if i wanted to become a hair stylist (an occupation primarily done by women), i would need to accept a culture that was different than my own...so why cant the same happen with geek culture? The article also goes into many stereotypes and many women arent going into computer science based on these perceived sterotypes. If we were talking about any other group, the words "racist", "sexist", Or "bigot" would be thrown…
Because two wrongs don't make a right.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because two wrongs don't make a right.
I want to be clear, is the original wrong here geek culture? The context is a bit tricky and I'm having trouble unpacking this.
There seems to always has been a problem of diversity in tech. Yet US has done just ok with males (white and asian) doing this stuff. Ie better than anybody else in the world.
Why is this a problem (something the writer - who is a literature professor, by the way) considers a given? Is there any proof that increased diversity has any effect (except employment opportunities for the otherwise underrepresented)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've banned this account for breaking the HN guidelines.
Did he actually say something terrible, or did he just commit a thoughtcrime in public? In this sort of discussion, one never knows. I didn't see the original comment, so I have no idea. But, given the context of this discussion, I am concerned that there is a decent possibility that he wrote something not outrageous, but simply contrary to the current received wisdom of young Bay Area Californians.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While a agree with the problems people mention in this subthread there are also, at least in some parts of the world, plenty of women in "life sciences" (biology/chemistry/medicine) and other fields like economics.
Yes. I sometimes feel like most of the people in these threads don't enter the discussion with the understanding that computer science, and software development in particular, are a topic of discussion because they have a uniquely bad gender gap.
In the UK, there's possibly much more of a problem with low/status pay for engineers in general than for women engineers specifically.
Clever women with the right social background head for medicine, law, media, marketing, or even teaching - especially at department head level, and above. That's where the real money and status are. There's also not much of a gender gap to speak of, except perhaps at the very top.
If anything, the gap goes the other way now, because boys in state schools are being aggressively socialised by peer pressure and teacher disinterest away from academic achievement in ways that girls aren't.
Engineers often have poor social status anyway. The UK is run by public school types, and they tend think of engineers as a slightly better class of carpenter or plumber. Social polish and family/school connections are far more valuable than the ability to build stuff that works.