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Women: Learn to Program This Summer

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Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#331

Post by zzzeek »

sqrt17 wrote: post #314
zzzeek wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Anyone who argues there should be "More women in medical school" needs to go visit a secretarial school. Completely filled with super smart women interested in typing and being secretaries." "If secretarial school women found being doctors as interesting as they did being Secretaries, we wouldn't have any shortage of women being doctors." same comment in 1950 when only 6% of doctors in the US were women (surprisingl…

The difference being, being a doctor is (in many parts of the world) both more challenging/competitive and better paid than programming. You explain with discrimination (which was real in the 50s according to most evidence we have) what is in parent's case better explained as a difference in motivation (making a five-figure salary by being responsible for humans is more attractive to the average US woman than being r…

> You explain with discrimination (which was real in the 50s according to most evidence we have) what is in parent's case better explained as a difference in motivation (making a five-figure salary by being responsible for humans is more attractive to the average US woman than being responsible for modules of code is).

and your evidence for this is ....?

> , and there is a multitude of reasons that are more plausible than purely discrimination.

same? When computer programming was first invented, nearly all programmers were women. Only when the job became prestigious were they pushed out by men. So this would indicate that discrimination, not interest level, is the sole reason we don't have a lot of female programmers today.

evidence: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-first-women-in-tech-didnt-l...

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#334

Post by mpweiher »

ajross wrote: post #251
DBYCZ wrote: post #246

Anyone who argues that there should be "More women in tech" needs to go visit a medical college. Completely filled with super smart women interested in science. If STEM women found Coding as interesting as they did Medicine (which is arguably more competitive and prestigious), we wouldn't have any shortage of women writing code. There is nothing wrong with either way, just let people do what they like to do.

What's the evidence that women aren't coding because they aren't "interested"? If you want to make that argument, don't you need to go and refute all the anecdotal evidence that women aren't entering tech careers because they don't feel welcome? I cite as evidence the fact that women in med schools have not, in fact, always been well represented and that the same kind of rhetoric about their "interests" was used to e…

> What's the evidence that women aren't coding because they aren't "interested"?

Every study that actually bothered to ask that question?

1.

For example, there was an ACM study that asked both men and women (most studies do not). To their surprise, they found that women reported greater levels of support from their management than the men did. One of the few things they asked in terms of attitudes where there was a statistically significant difference between men and women was, drumroll, "interest in technology".

And that's for people actually in the profession!

https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/2/5453-women-and-men-in-...

2. Then there was the study that looked at why women leave engineering. #1 reason? "Didn't like the work/not interested in engineering". #2 reason was starting a family, #3 was didn't like the environment.

https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/NSF_Stemming%20the%20Tid...

(Note: look at the actual numbers, not the headlines, because the headlines are very, very selective and do not reflect the actual numbers)

3. There was a study about high school students taking (or not taking) CS in Israel. They looked at all the factors that are usually trotted out, support, role-models, etc. No difference. The one point that showed a difference: "interest in CS", with the boys taking the class at 100% and the girls at 43%. For kids not taking the class the level of interest was gender-neutrally low. Interestingly, this was reported as "no statistical difference", which is...odd.

(Semanticscholar actually has the table in question, it's table 7 in the gallery)

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Computer-science-issue...

4. The ROSE project showed that non-interest in science and engineering starts at a very early age. It also shows that interest dropping generally in countries with higher HDI, not just for girls, though for girls it drops even more quickly.

So it's not just the Gender Equality Paradox already mentioned quite a bit here, but also a more general Development vs. interest in STEM issue.

https://roseproject.no/network/countries/norway/eng/nor-Sjob...

And of course there are the more general studies that show that a difference between people vs. things (empathising vs. systematising) is one of the largest and most robust gender differences that has been found (in the same category as the difference in aggression).

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#335

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #329
DBYCZ wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scholarship for a CS program seems a much more worthy cause, as everyone with an internet connection has access to learn everything needed to begin a career in tech.

It's funny how the same people who argue that there are real differences between men and women that are biological in origin which produce all of the differences in representation in tech can't imagine that there might be real, at least on-average, differences between men and women (whether of biological or socialization-rooted origin) that affect what learning methods and contexts they are most successful with and i…

[deleted]

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#336

Post by DanBC »

wtdata wrote: post #333

Ask yourself, would it be proper an action titled: Men: Learn Medicine this summer or Men: Learn Psychology this summer? All I am asking is for coherence, one way or another.

They have those, and this is a point that is repeatedly made, and debunked, on HN.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#337

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #290
manfredo wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the tech companies are stuck between a rock and a hard place. The media has been heavily pushing the narrative that women are underrepresented at these tech companies - and they are compared to the general population. But I've seen plenty of stories, even from reputable sources like the NYT, criticizing tech companies for only hiring 20-25% women while failing to mention that this is exactly in line with…

> But I've seen plenty of stories, even from reputable sources like the NYT, criticizing tech companies for only hiring 20-25% women while failing to mention that this is exactly in line with the percentages of tech workers that are women. If the industry is systematically unfavorable to women, hiring at the same percentage as the industry as a whole (which is what matching the “percentage of tech workers that are wo…

[deleted]

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#338

Post by ajross »

manfredo wrote: post #317
ajross wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No no, I get your point. I'm saying there's a much more obvious hypothesis for why "people are selective of the industry they work in", and you need to refute that instead of circularly insisting on its truth as the basis for your argument. Basically, you're saying "chicks don't like tech", and I'm saying "prove it". And you won't. And then you try to tell me that I'm missing the point because I failed to note that c…

> I'm saying there's a much more obvious hypothesis for why "people are selective of the industry they work in", and you need to refute that instead of circularly insisting on its truth as the basis for your argument. ...no? It's your responsibility to provide evidence for your "much more obvious hypothesis". I provided evidence for my claim that women choose not to go into tech on their own volition. I provided glob…

> I provided evidence for my claim that women choose not to go into tech on their own volition.

Uh... no, you didn't? I don't see it. All I see is circular logic: you're citing the lack of women in tech as evidence that they don't want to be there in response to a thread that says the lack of women in tech is a problem.

My point is that there are dozens or hundreds of other career paths where women used to be excluded and are now at parity, so I don't see any reason (other than novelty -- tech is still new, comparatively) for things to be any different here.

And your logic doesn't speak to that at all.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#339

Post by anisppp »

QualityReboot wrote: post #260
ajross wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the evidence that women aren't coding because they aren't "interested"? If you want to make that argument, don't you need to go and refute all the anecdotal evidence that women aren't entering tech careers because they don't feel welcome? I cite as evidence the fact that women in med schools have not, in fact, always been well represented and that the same kind of rhetoric about their "interests" was used to e…

> If you want to make that argument, don't you need to go and refute all the anecdotal evidence that women aren't entering tech careers because they don't feel welcome? Who feels welcome in tech? It's an elitest culture filled with strong personalities that fancies itself a meritocracy.

The same can be said about medicine.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#340

Post by CptFribble »

manfredo wrote: post #210
40acres wrote: post #182

Some of the comments in this thread is a master class of how discrimination and gatekeeping work not just in our industry but in society as a whole. How can we simultaneously be an industry built on free an open source software and yet try to put up walls around our industry when efforts are made to make it more accessible to others? The barriers to programming are being lowered and this is an excellent thing. More d…

This, I feel, is a disingenuous summary of the concerns with explicitly discriminatory policies voiced in the comments here. The issue is not that people don't want to make coding more accessible. The issue most serm to be taking is that many places are pursuing diversity by deliberately making it less accessible for undesireable demographics. See my company's policies for one example: https://news.ycombinator.com/it…

If you are in a privileged position, and then that privilege is reduced, it can feel like a barrier is going up. It's not.

When you rebalance scales, the side that was too high has to go down a little.

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