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What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

nytimes.com

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Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#321

Post by peterjmag »

natvod wrote: post #76

Ok so I'm a girl who codes/programs and I'm my take on the issues she raised: Stereotypes about STEM fields putting girls off I can only talk about my own experience but I saw very few negative stereotypes about STEM fields growing up. Definitely not enough to put off girls. However, while I did start coding at a young age, I didn't apply my skill to a work/business purpose until my twenties. Why? I think this issue…

Related to your second point, here's a piece that really got me thinking: https://medium.com/@urchkin/leveling-both-sides-of-the-playi....

I'd love to see the industry become less masculine, rather than the onus being on women to act more masculine.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#322

Post by dfabulich »

kisstheblade wrote: post #317

One question. Why is it important to make, quote: "computer science more attractive to women..."? I mean I get that the sex discrimination stuff and treatment of women we read here on hacker news is bad and of course it would help if there were more women in tech. But other than that, if you think of the women in general and not some "diversity would be good" (which it probably would be), why the worry? Why aren't we…

This is the top voted comment right now, but I'm struggling to understand it.

You grant (at least for the sake of discussion) that more women would help with the tech industry's sex discrimination problems, and that diversity itself would "probably" be good.

But then you ask, "but other than that, why is it important?"

It makes no sense to disregard sex discrimination and diversity when considering whether this topic is important. Sex discrimination and diversity are themselves already important.

It's like asking about the benefits of exercise, setting aside the health benefits and psychological benefits.

> Why aren't we as worried that not enough men show interest in being nurses or kindergarten teachers or social workers?

People do worry about those topics, but we mostly talk about tech here on Hacker News.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#323

Post by davmre »

kisstheblade wrote: post #317

One question. Why is it important to make, quote: "computer science more attractive to women..."? I mean I get that the sex discrimination stuff and treatment of women we read here on hacker news is bad and of course it would help if there were more women in tech. But other than that, if you think of the women in general and not some "diversity would be good" (which it probably would be), why the worry? Why aren't we…

The greedy answer: because systematically discouraging 50% of the brainpower of the human species from entering one of our most productive and simultaneously short-staffed occupations is bad for technological progress and the growth of global wealth.

The humanist/utilitarian answer: because computer science is intrinsically awesome and rewarding, so global utility is maximized by ensuring that anyone who might be interested has an unimpeded path towards experiencing that awesomeness.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#324

Post by IanCal »

kisstheblade wrote: post #317

One question. Why is it important to make, quote: "computer science more attractive to women..."? I mean I get that the sex discrimination stuff and treatment of women we read here on hacker news is bad and of course it would help if there were more women in tech. But other than that, if you think of the women in general and not some "diversity would be good" (which it probably would be), why the worry? Why aren't we…

> why the worry?

Artificially limiting the supply of talent to something that I assume many of us on HN believe to be an important field is not a good thing.

> Why aren't we as worried that not enough men show interest in being nurses or kindergarten teachers or social workers?

I think that is important, teaching young children particularly since good teachers can have an enormous influence on a large number of people.

One big difference however is in the scale of pay.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#325

Post by xerophyte12932 »

icanhackit wrote: post #279
natvod wrote: post #76

Ok so I'm a girl who codes/programs and I'm my take on the issues she raised: Stereotypes about STEM fields putting girls off I can only talk about my own experience but I saw very few negative stereotypes about STEM fields growing up. Definitely not enough to put off girls. However, while I did start coding at a young age, I didn't apply my skill to a work/business purpose until my twenties. Why? I think this issue…

Great post though I'd like to add some thoughts to this bit: the professional/business world as a whole rewards and values masculine traits (competitiveness, talking highly of yourself and accomplishments, etc.) I'd argue those are better classified as extroverted traits rather than masculine traits. Believe me, there are more than a few males that suffer from this being the dominant culture in business (or anywhere)…

This is a sort of culture (in geographic terms) thing to be honest. There was a very nice article somewhere that compared the values of the East and the West. Talking highly of yourself actually comes off as negative in the East. In the East, humility is considered far more respectable, where as the same comes off as weak in the west.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#326

Post by wmt »

kisstheblade wrote: post #317

One question. Why is it important to make, quote: "computer science more attractive to women..."? I mean I get that the sex discrimination stuff and treatment of women we read here on hacker news is bad and of course it would help if there were more women in tech. But other than that, if you think of the women in general and not some "diversity would be good" (which it probably would be), why the worry? Why aren't we…

The article says multiple times that when young people make choices about e.g. should they learn programming, they of course use their own free will, but they often decide based on incorrect expectations. As another example it mentioned how men often avoid becoming an English major for similar reasons. I'm not sure if english majors consider a skewed gender representation for their craft, but frankly I don't think I even care. What I do care about is the fact that computer science now gets dumber people by scaring away people through false expectations.

Doing small things to fix these flawed expectations has nothing to do with dismissing others as little girls who only care about nail polish. Articles suggestions like changing the course name from "programming in java" to a more descriptive "creative problem solving with python" hardly warrants such criticism.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#327

Post by maxcan »

sridca wrote: post #300
maxcan wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the comment meant that dispassionately and sensibly pointing out the double standard is problematic but that one runs the risk of facing a large, internet backlash for pointing out certain classes of double standards of which the one above is one.

Let me rephrase what I said for clarity: the biggest issue now seems to be men not speaking up against their detractors for fear of being ostracized, of being labelled a member of a group with negative connotations, of facing a large internet backlash.

In which case, I absolutely agree. I've made the mistake of sharing my thoughts on these issues before.

"But once you’ve won a culture war, free speech is a nuisance, and “eliminating” language becomes a necessity." - http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/thats-no...

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#328

Post by sakopov »

To sum this up, men in software engineering are like a bunch of children and expect everyone around them to be exactly the same. I couldn't agree more. I'd wager that most software companies (all i've worked for) have no sense of work etiquette because a lot of engineers are in some sort of la-la land where you don't have to grow up and the smarter you are the more you get to act as an odd, grown child. Is anybody really surprised that this is driving women away? It would be interesting to know how this compares to professional engineers (mechanical, electrical etc) and the environments they work in. I'd be shocked if the same level of immaturity passes there.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#329

Post by duaneb »

Kalium wrote: post #309
duaneb wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So—first, empathy, I don't get video games at all. Second—this strikes me as fairly standard cultural shock. It's one thing to find yourself immersed in a culture, it's quite another to find that you have to immerse yourself in that culture to reach your teammates. This is an experience I have not encountered before; people have surprised me with the lengths they go to ensure a healthy diversity in company culture so…

> It's complicated. But monocultures are certainly terrible teamwork oriented groups of people—I think we can all agree with that. I don't know. That thought sounds kind of monocultural. So -- first, empathy. I've felt cultural shock. I've lived places and done things where many people around me lived lives that made no sense to me. Second -- that's not just a snarky one-liner. I'm suggesting that your notions, as ex…

I think a monoculture with respect to opinions about monoculture would be just as bad, yes, but it's not a terrible rule of thumb to diversify culture. You definitely need to be surrounded by all types of people... including people like yourself.

Re: What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech

#330

Post by mst »

wtbob wrote: post #284
mst wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Model/view/misandry et al's continued hatred of HN suggests to me that the moderation approach doesn't punish thoughtcrime qua thoughtcrime, only actually horrible stuff. 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')

What's model/view/misandry? I googled it, but no luck.

I didn't expect the google results to be quite so utterly worthless; I am apparently the only person to've called them that anywhere indexed, only on twitter, and I only found the tweet by googling 'avoiceformanchildren' (I was in a lovely mood that day, apparently; being a relatively moderate libfem turns out to result in ending up angry at basically everybody).

Dear Google: Please up your game to compensate for my stupidity -- love, mst

Dear wtbob: Doh, sorry. What rewqfdsa++ said.

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