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

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#411

Post by Slyfox33 » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 10:28 AM UTC

Ferret7446 wrote: post #405

digging wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it a lower bar is a completely disingenuous interpretation, when the reason for such policies in the first place is that the bar for entry is much higher for minority groups to be hired.

It's not though? Discriminating based on minority status is illegal, and affirmative action is an explicit exception to allow discrimination (at least in education; in the private sector it should in theory still be illegal but it's not/rarely enforced).

"Discriminating based on minority status is illegal" Are you actually suggesting that there isn't discrimination in hiring? If its not a company policy then you wont be able to prove that you were discriminated against. I don't know how you can sit here and say it doesn't happen.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#412

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 12:23 PM UTC

simplicio wrote: post #333

jimbokun wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a lot of Men-in-Teaching advocacy There are pundits saying this should be supported. Are there programs with real dollars behind them making actual changes?

The one I linked to? But that was just the first one that came up on google, seems to be a fair number of similar programs in other states.

Sorry, missed the link.

I hope those programs make a difference.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#413

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 12:25 PM UTC

cudgy wrote: post #388

jimbokun wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost as if they are organizations formed around the goal of optimizing profits, and not the general benefit of society.

Then what use are they?

It’s the best system we’ve discovered so far to optimize price discovery, efficiency and productivity.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#414

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 12:31 PM UTC

riehwvfbk wrote: post #357

jimbokun wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That would imply that women aren't deserving of the promotion, and that aggressive posturing is somehow a requirement for the job (and women get a free pass). However, if the book is any indication, Tanya is a great staff engineer, probably among the best of any gender. This of course begs the question: could it be that discriminating against men who don't display the stereotypical behaviors is detrimental to diversi…

Maybe this, maybe that, no data.

It’s not clear that people incapable of being assertive or direct would make naturally more effective managers.

And assuming that women drawn to management positions will be more empathetic to the neuro diverse is a gigantic reach. I have no idea why that would be the case.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#415

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 12:32 PM UTC

judahmeek wrote: post #290

jimbokun wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Every time I’ve looked into it, pay gaps for same role and same experience are very small, sometimes favoring women. And if anything, women are promoted faster in an attempt to diversify the management ranks.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#416

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 12:37 PM UTC

cauch wrote: post #344

jimbokun wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, some one has to sit down and write or debug the code. It's never going to be as human oriented as something like teaching, being a therapist, or managing people full time.

But it is as human-oriented as other science fields that are typically considered as more people-oriented and these fields attract a bigger proportion of women. Also, one of my point is that the "non human oriented" is also part of the image, but not of the reality. I see more and more successful developers that explains that "sit down and write or debug the code" on your own is not a fundamentally big part of the jo…

If you do not think writing and debugging code is an important part of software development requiring specific skills, talents, and experience, I don’t want you anywhere near any software development team I’m working on.

Paul Graham has made multiple fortunes based on the premise that good programmers can learn the soft skills for business much easier than the average business person can learn to code. Mountains of money have been made from this premise.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#417

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 12:39 PM UTC

cauch wrote: post #406

Manuel_D wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it is as human-oriented as other science fields that are typically considered as more people-oriented and these fields attract a bigger proportion of women. Bigger, sure, but not by much. STEM (presumably what you mean by "science fields") are bigger in aggregate ~25% women. Some of these are smaller (~10% of electrical engineers are men). Some are bigger, biology IIRC is about 50/50. Computer science is about…

I agree with that. My comment here is about the idea that the disparity can be explained because "computer science is more thing-oriented and women are more interested in people-oriented activities". If it was true, we would not see different numbers in different STEM fields. Personally, I think that the cultural image of the field, rather than it being intrinsically thing- or people-oriented, has a bigger impact. In…

Biology is because it’s a prerequisite for medical fields increasingly dominated by women.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#418

Post by spookie » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 12:41 PM UTC

ndriscoll wrote: post #330

spookie wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I know you know best (talking plural here), but make sure that your wife feels accomplished in her own line of work and/or getting her dream job. Raising kids is great, but as age goes by, she might feel sad about not accomplishing other things. This is coming from someone with a dysfunctional family, I don't have much context about your life nor do I want to sound as if I'm assuming things. I'm just trying to w…

She does accomplish other things/have hobbies. Her squat is in the "exceptional" tier on Symmetric Strength. She's good at cooking a variety of meals. We've gotten compliments from neighbors that live a couple streets away about our yard. She generally takes credit for transforming me from a video game nerd into a weightlifting Chad, and I don't disagree. She majored in math and did a couple programming courses in co…

That's good to hear! As long as you're happy and you discussed these things with eachother it's all good.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#419

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 12:44 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #339

jimbokun wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, some one has to sit down and write or debug the code. It's never going to be as human oriented as something like teaching, being a therapist, or managing people full time.

It's more human oriented than writing math proofs! Why is the gap between those two fields double digit percentage points?

I was not aware of that and it looks like math is an interesting exception. Any theories on what’s responsible for that difference?

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#420

Post by jimbokun » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 12:44 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #338

jimbokun wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why do you think they're so skewed? Why are there so many women working in mathematics and particularly in cryptography compared to general computer engineering? Why are women so well represented in other hard science fields, both in absolute terms (especially in fields like biochemistry) and in relative terms compared to computer science and engineering?

What’s your theory?