Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years • Hacker News Board

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#281

Post by jimbokun » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:57 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #221

gizmo686 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are probably in a better position to do DEI at scale. Slight tangent, but most large tech companies DEI programs were never really great at doing DEI at scale. They were mostly funnelling the existing pool of diverse candidates into them. The result is that companies without an active DEI program end up less diverse through no fault of their own.

what is the mechanism for that "funneling" though? intentional programs to make diverse candidates feel more welcome? more money? if big tech is actively working to attract diverse candidates and other companies aren't keeping up, it doesn't sound like it's through no fault of their own that they can't retain those people.

More money.

Smaller companies can't compete with FAANG salaries. So when FAANG prioritizes hiring women, and there are still many fewer women than men in tech overall, smaller and poorer companies can't compete with the offers women are getting from FAANG.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#282

Post by klyrs » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

RIMR wrote: post #174

randomdata wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why else would a buyer invest heavily in increasing the supply?

I like that we're not beating around the bush and admitting that businesses only donate money to causes they think will financially benefit them. That there are no altruistic actions by a business entity, everything is either an operational expense or an investment. This is 100% true in practice, so you're absolutely correct here. I just hope that we're in agreement that this is a bad state of affairs if businesses h…

Counterpoint: a cynical take posted deep in a comment thread in a random corner of the internet may not accurately reflect the values of an entire industry.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#283

Post by jimbokun » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 6:00 PM UTC

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…

> women are still systemically under-compensated, under-levelled, and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles

Do you have actual data to support this claim?

> into coordinating work, managing people

So promoted into management. Are you saying managers are systemically making less than the engineers they manage? Which would be interesting, as management is generally seen as a more prestigious role than individual contributor.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#284

Post by jimbokun » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 6:01 PM UTC

riehwvfbk wrote: post #255

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…

There is a great book (written by a female engineer, Tanya Riley) called "The Staff Engineer's Path". I've learned a lot from the book, but one part of Tanya's experience that I could not relate to was having mentors who would encourage me and provide "you can do this" kind of pep talks. For a male engineer the usual experience is the opposite: we are expected to be competitive, and if we display any doubts then the…

> This is probably because women are expected to have a high degree of self doubt and there is no assumption that they are defective if they admit to it.

A simpler explanation is that there is a perceived need to increase the number of women in management positions.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#285

Post by elric » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 6:04 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #277

elric wrote: post #269

This is such a difficult topic. When I started my undergraduate in CompSci, the department of 300 students had exactly 3 women. The faculty had way more female instructors than it did students. The Commucation Sciences department, which was on the same campus, had the inverse student population. I'm all in favour for letting students making their own study (and career) choices, but when the imbalance is this great, I…

[flagged]

> you seem to have very little curiosity into WHY those ratios are so skewed

That's a weird take. How would you know what I'm curious about? Pardon the strawman, but I'm not interested in handwavy explanations which tend to border on bigotry ("$category simply isn't interested in $topic"). I suspect the fundamental reasons are myriad and complex, but that doesn't mean $field wouldn't benefit from more diversity.

> It's impossible to change these distributions without understanding the underlying causes for how they got that way.

Maybe, maybe not. The ratio is certainly a lot less skewed now than when I was a student over 20 years ago. My understanding (or lack thereof) certainly didn't have an impact, but throughout my career I have always tried to be supportive of people who are in some way different from me. Heterogeneity is a good thing. Monocultures result in weakness.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#286

Post by jimbokun » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 6:05 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #210

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…

Sounds like you went into more and more female spaces, as the field as a whole has barely changed, and if you compare to 20-30 years go it is worse. https://swe.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Percent_WomenSTEM...

DATA! Thank you!

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#287

Post by bookaway » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 6:07 PM UTC

dangus wrote: post #199

Melomololotolo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I look around my peers, not a lot has changed in the last 10 years for woman in tech

Who are your peers and where do they work? What I’m getting at here is, maybe they're at stagnant companies that aren’t making a positive change. What I’ve noticed is that there are companies that care to be inclusive. It’s an active undertaking, not a passive one. I started my career working with all men in a toxic echo chamber, and now I’m on a team that is almost completely balanced. It’s also on me to not join te…

>Statistically there should be at least one or two.

Well, if the statistics takes into consideration the notion that a lot of women don't even apply to certain jobs thinking they're under-qualified should we be surprised if there are less than we initially expect?

I appreciate the point of being proactive, since the point above can be somewhat mitigated by HR reaching out to prospects instead of relying on the existing applicant pool. But it seems everyone involved in the hiring process should be as convinced as you about the mid/long-term benefits of having women on the team, otherwise it's a uphill battle passing up perfectly acceptable candidates when there is so much work to get done. It's much easier when everyone believes that the X factor of having a women on the team far outweighs the delays and the accumulating negative effects of business in the short term.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#288

Post by jimbokun » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 6:09 PM UTC

dangus wrote: post #199

Melomololotolo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I look around my peers, not a lot has changed in the last 10 years for woman in tech

Who are your peers and where do they work? What I’m getting at here is, maybe they're at stagnant companies that aren’t making a positive change. What I’ve noticed is that there are companies that care to be inclusive. It’s an active undertaking, not a passive one. I started my career working with all men in a toxic echo chamber, and now I’m on a team that is almost completely balanced. It’s also on me to not join te…

> Statistically there should be at least one or two.

Of course not. Women make up a minority of people working in tech, and are highly recruited by the large companies able to pay the highest compensation. So it's very difficult for other companies to find women willing to work at the lower salaries they can offer.

So there likely is a problem with hiring. They don't have enough money to afford hiring more women.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#289

Post by autoexec » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 6:10 PM UTC

daseiner1 wrote: post #189

ndriscoll wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife spends around an hour a day in the kitchen. I spend close to eight chained to my computer. If one of us is a slave, it's not her. She's not attending daily stand-ups to report how teaching our daughter the alphabet is going; she chooses how to spend each day with no external pressures at all. Her work taking care of the kids is still more exhausting than mine, but it's also obviously more fulfilling and engag…

This dovetails with my central critique, which is that the current state of feminism, in my opinion, tends to insidiously subscribe to the tenets of the “late stage capitalism” that many self-proclaimed x-wave feminists (again, in my experience) claim to denounce, as it is oriented around viewing people first and foremost as economic agents. Yes, individual income affords freedoms to both men and women, which is not…

> But then you hear criticisms of women such as your wife, essentially demeaning them for not striving to be the fittest individual economic agents possible.

to some extent I think that pressure is put on everyone. There's a lot of pressure to always be making/spending more money. There's also a lot of jealousy. Almost every person I know with children, man or woman, would rather be with their kids, and be there for their kids as they grow up. Very few couples are fortunate enough to be able to afford a good life on just one income.

That leads to people being resentful that they are missing out on what they want for themselves and their children. They're stuck missing all the once in a lifetime experiences they could be having because they are chained to a desk for 8-10 hours a day 5 or more days a week. That can cause people to resent the few men and women who do get to stay home and be with their family. They'll make others feel bad for not spending their time working for someone else because misery loves company. It's crab bucket mentality.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#290

Post by judahmeek » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 6:11 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #283

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…

> women are still systemically under-compensated, under-levelled, and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles Do you have actual data to support this claim? > into coordinating work, managing people So promoted into management. Are you saying managers are systemically making less than the engineers they manage? Which would be interesting, as management is generally seen as a more prestigious role than individu…

> Do you have actual data to support this claim?

You can easily search "women in tech statistics 2024" and make your own conclusions.

My conclusion is that the gender gap in tech is not completely resolved.