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Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

venturebeat.com

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Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#241

Post by autoexec »

badgersnake wrote: post #82
mikhael28 wrote: post #57

There is an expression which I think is fitting, in a weird way - a successful marriage does not have to last forever. For some reason, we always tend to imagine that, once a company or organization is created, it must last forever. That for it to ‘close its doors’ or ‘wind down’ is somehow a failure. And that’s just not true; a professional athletes career does not last forever, and neither does the lifespan of most…

She says she’s closing it “with a heavy heart”. It sounds like she wanted to continue.

Yeah this terrible article doesn't explain why it's shutting down and doesn't link to the source (a newsletter I guess, so maybe it's not available online) so people can find more answers, but I also go the impression that this wasn't what she wanted.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#243

Post by uberman »

Molitor5901 wrote: post #29

Just skimming the 2022 990, executive compensation was $285,170. Total expenses $1,904,475 on $2,005,994 in revenue.

Just going to note that all of that was one person's salary. I question why a smaller non-profit based in Tennessee would need to pay their CEO almost 300k. Senior researchers where I work make half that while managing grant projects with twice the funding.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#244

Post by brailsafe »

vundercind wrote: post #225
burutthrow1234 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a change in the past 10 years but I would say women are still systemically under-compensated, under-levelled, and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles like product, design, etc. The perception that women are better at "soft skills" means that we get pushed out of technical tracks into coordinating work, managing people, and sometimes just straight up babysitting male devs. Those career paths lead…

Product is a lot more prestigious at most companies. Design is too, at quite a few, in that it’s often a better stepping stone to product, though that depends on the org. In general, programming jobs are low-status. High pay, but low status.

People like to think programming is a purely luxury job, and in some ways it is, but not compared to something where you often have more agency in the direction of a product. Programmers at lower levels probably take more bullshit and have less influence than anything with a title that conveys a higher level of abstract problem solving.

Being a freelance website designer likely pays less but is more rewarding as a practice than being a random cog

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#245

Post by DonHopkins »

gramie wrote: post #72
mikhael28 wrote: post #57

There is an expression which I think is fitting, in a weird way - a successful marriage does not have to last forever. For some reason, we always tend to imagine that, once a company or organization is created, it must last forever. That for it to ‘close its doors’ or ‘wind down’ is somehow a failure. And that’s just not true; a professional athletes career does not last forever, and neither does the lifespan of most…

In fact, we consider a marriage successful if it ends in the death of one of the partners.

Maybe that's that Hans Reiser thought, but an amicable divorce also has its advantages.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#246

Post by uberman »

nothercastle wrote: post #40
asah wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this is normal, because running a non-profit is hard enough that suitable candidates command high salaries. I was on an NPO board with a similar ratio and we couldn't get it down.

300k isn’t crazy especially in SF that s not going up get you far

They were based in Tennessee when she made $280k. When they were based in the bay area, she made just shy of $370k.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#247

Post by Kye »

vundercind wrote: post #225
burutthrow1234 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a change in the past 10 years but I would say women are still systemically under-compensated, under-levelled, and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles like product, design, etc. The perception that women are better at "soft skills" means that we get pushed out of technical tracks into coordinating work, managing people, and sometimes just straight up babysitting male devs. Those career paths lead…

Product is a lot more prestigious at most companies. Design is too, at quite a few, in that it’s often a better stepping stone to product, though that depends on the org. In general, programming jobs are low-status. High pay, but low status.

Positives are diminished when the paths you wanted to pursue are closed off. Things that look like privilege when you don't have it can be a prison when you're stuck in its boundaries.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#248

Post by mattmaroon »

TrueGeek wrote: post #66

Better article with more information: https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2024/07/08/girls-... > In an email Monday, founder and CEO Adriana Gascoigne said “Girls in Tech will be closing its doors due to a lack of funding in 2023 and 2024.”

That’s a bummer I was hoping it was more of a “mission accomplished” kind of closure.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#249

Post by vundercind »

ryandrake wrote: post #167
em-bee wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't know the real reasons, but i have the impression that in those countries STEM careers give women more freedom, and that would be why they pursue them. the added freedom makes it worth the potential downsides. in the west they already have more freedom, and so the downside of having to endure sexism does not make it worth the effort. not sure if that is true, but it makes sense to me

> in the west they already have more freedom, and so the downside of having to endure sexism does not make it worth the effort. This is a great point. I think a lot of HN simply takes as given that tech is a great, pleasant industry to work in, for everyone. Let's say that it isn't. If it isn't, then that might explain why people who have a good degree of financial/employment freedom would not choose to work in tech,…

I dunno about everyone else, but if “campground manager” had comp as good as tech, that’s sure as shit what I’d be doing instead.

Goes for a lot of other options, actually. Clerking a small store is often way more pleasant (depends on the store) than even relatively-good tech jobs, at least to me. But the pay’s not there.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#250

Post by anal_reactor »

burutthrow1234 wrote: post #193
ilickpoolalgae wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel the same. The last decade or so has seen an explosion of women show interest in joining the tech community. Ratio's on teams I've been on has greatly increased throughout my career. I've been on several teams now where women have outnumbered men. In my experience, the ratio is now flipped when you look at the team as a whole (XFN, etc). I may be biased though as I've only worked at "premier" large tech c…

It's been a change in the past 10 years but I would say women are still systemically under-compensated, under-levelled, and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles like product, design, etc. The perception that women are better at "soft skills" means that we get pushed out of technical tracks into coordinating work, managing people, and sometimes just straight up babysitting male devs. Those career paths lead…

As a student I have personally experienced "sorry, you cannot join the event, you're a boy we're looking for a girl" and instead of me they picked a girl whose only job was to stand, smile, and tick the box "yes I'm a girl, this makes the team diverse". Having such an experience makes my brain heavily biased against all actions supporting gender equality.

Which are many. And they're almost always about improving the position of women. "Gender equality" is rarely ever about improving the position of men. The social consensus is that it's impossible for a situation to exist where a man is discriminated against, and even discussing this idea is a very much taboo topic. Which is not true, because such situations exist, and the number of people who have this opinion but are afraid of voicing it is growing.

I'm deeply convinced that a societal shift is on the horizon, and what we see as "modern feminism" will be, in the future, considered one of those things that aged like milk. The only question is whether this change will result in a society where people feel equal, or the pendulum will simply swing back and it's going to be taboo to discuss the hardships of women.

This change isn't very visible in western societies yet, but we're starting to see it in South Korea. This movement is going to grow and spread.

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