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Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

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Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#431

Post by digging »

commandlinefan wrote: post #425
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.

> the bar for entry is much higher for minority groups ... no, it isn't - the entrance requirements are the exact same for everybody.

> the entrance requirements are the exact same for everybody.

What a beautiful fantasy, where humans don't make biased decisions.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#432

Post by mikepurvis »

shiroiushi wrote: post #376
mikepurvis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of possible definitions for success— making it until death parts you is the obvious one, but "success" can also be producing fruit in terms of community, family, or even career. And there are of course marriages that make it until death, but the partners and everyone around them spend the whole time miserable; that's hardly a success either.

>And there are of course marriages that make it until death, but the partners and everyone around them spend the whole time miserable; that's hardly a success either. Maybe according to your personal opinion, but the general opinion of society at large has been, for centuries if not longer, that these miserable marriages were in fact "successful" because they kept the two people married which was apparently much more…

Yes, that is a good point. I don't think it's my "personal opinion", but yes, the rise of people breaking up marriages because they aren't happy or fulfilled enough is definitely a phenomenon of the last hundred years or so; there's much less of a sense of duty to family, community, or God in any of it, and there's arguments to be made there around gender roles as well.

That said, I think another factor that's stressed modern marriage is longer life expectancy arising from better diet, healthcare, and working conditions. Even a few hundred years ago lots of marriages might last only a decade or two on account of a partner falling fatally ill or dying in childbirth in their thirties or forties. Nowaways a couple in their thirties are staring down the possibility of five more decades together and it's a lot more reasonable to feel like your whole life is ahead of you still and maybe you want to do the corresponding soul-searching around who will be your companion for such a long period of time.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#433

Post by ndriscoll »

CalRobert wrote: post #397
ndriscoll wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This roughly describes my parents. Speaking from the perspective of the child, I'd say that is probably not success. It's probably closer to lots of acute behavioral issues along with some lifelong damage.

Sorry to hear that. My own parents divorced and it was very much for the best, but their marriage wasn't great beforehand (hardly a surprise given that they got divorced of course!)

It was perhaps for the best, but I'd still call that "a failure that could've gone worse" as opposed to "success".

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#434

Post by Manuel_D »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #392
Manuel_D wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger question is whether there actually is a "victim". Imagine governments started a lottery, where a random selection of women were forced to work in STEM regardless of their preferences. That'd solve the gender disparity overnight! But is that a good thing for women? The reality is that most people want men and women both to be able to freely choose their profession. The underlying debate is whether the dispa…

>The underlying debate is whether the disparity is due to choices or some sort of discrimination. It doesn’t look like a debate though. Pro-choice exclusively male crowd pulls the same argument with the stats from nordics again and again without going deeper into what do those numbers mean. There’s no plausible theory explaining why there’s no victim. On pro-discrimination side there’s plenty of arguments (usually co…

> Pro-choice exclusively male crowd

It is by no means exclusively male. This is a completely baseless claim on your part.

> There’s no plausible theory explaining why there’s no victim.

Why is "women enjoy things other than technology" not a plausible theory? The percentage of women working in tech matches the percentage of women who major in it. The percentage of women who major in it matches the percentage of high schoolers and middle schoolers who say they're interested in technology.

> On pro-discrimination side there’s plenty of arguments (usually coming from people who actually study the subject).

It's always entertaining to see people who insist that there's plenty of arguments, but aren't bothered to make any. What do people who study the subject find?

When researchers send out resumes and measure differences in call-backs, women are called back sooner and more frequently than men: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484

Studies measuring hiring preferences in universities found a 2:1 preference in favor of women: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1418878112

The pro-discrimination side has to cite non-existent studies: https://www.vox.com/2019/2/20/18232762/gender-diversity-tech...

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#435

Post by Manuel_D »

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…

> 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.

No, this does not track. It could also be that some fields in STEM are more people oriented than others. Psychology is over 2/3rd female. If anything, that inconsistency in representation supports the link between things vs. people and women's representation.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#436

Post by commandlinefan »

digging wrote: post #430
Ferret7446 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> It's not though? Discriminating based on minority status is illegal Hm, then I guess nobody does it.

Well, no... they do the opposite and they aren't exactly subtle or circumspect about it.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#437

Post by em-bee »

redeeman wrote: post #421
Manuel_D wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's a field that's 80% women and 20% men, is setting a DEI target of 40% men preventing sexism? Or is it perpetrating sexism?

it will probably be downvoted to hell, but it seems like there isnt many that argue the field of plumbing needs more women, more women laying down sewage pipes etc. I tried reaching out to some feminist organisations to make some campaigns for this, and they were 100% not interested. it seems the "increase female %" only covers jobs that are super cleanly in office spaces

well don't ask feminist organizations, ask the plumbers and the customers:

https://www.workiz.com/blog/plumbing/why-how-hire-women-plum...

The second reason comes down to client safety. For various reasons, some women simply aren’t comfortable with male plumbers. Though most plumbers are perfectly nice people unless you’re a particularly spirited clog in a drain, the fact remains that not every woman is comfortable being alone in her home with a man that she doesn’t know. Having access to industry professionals that can provide a little more comfort can be a huge selling point, particularly for young women, single mothers, and victims of domestic violence.

https://www.worldplumbing.org/attracting-more-women-to-plumb...

https://www.commusoft.us/blog/why-the-industry-needs-more-fe...

“We work with women that are survivors of domestic abuse. At a women’s safe house, if some work needs doing and they need to contact a tradesman, it can often be quite stressful for them. We get inundated calls from customers who want to use tradeswomen.”

so it appears there is an objective need for female plumbers, not just as a statistic, not just to create a better workplace, or higher shareholder returns. those arguments are given too. but with single women being more common and higher awareness of domestic abuse, the argument can be made that with 30% of women being single, 5% female plumbers is not enough.

this is a very rough estimate. 30% single women is 15% of the total population, but 23% of the total number of households. (30% single women + 30% single men + 70% each of married men and women adds up to 130 household units)

however if you add 25% stay at home women who are usually the ones who would deal with a plumber since the husband is at work, then they will probably prefer female plumbers too. so i'd estimate that we need at least 25% to 30% female plumbers.

it can be argued that being served by a tradesperson of your own gender is a right, and therefore a gender distribution that matches the needs of the population is not just something that would improve the trade (which can be argued about), but actually a necessity that should be enforced by law.

same goes for teachers btw. boys need male role models, and therefore i believe laws should push for a 50/50 gender parity among teaching staff at all levels.

similar arguments can be made for all consumer facing professions. (police for example). this is no longer a question of qualification or job preference. it's not even a question of gender equality, but a question of how to best serve the population as a whole.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#438

Post by tptacek »

jimbokun wrote: post #420
tptacek wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The obvious one, right? The one that doesn't require me to make arguments (not that you made one) like "well programming means arguing with a compiler and mathematics means arguing with other mathematicians which is a more humane activity".

I tend towards explanations of things that don't involve software developers being a unique, distinct species of cognitive entity, probably because (like you, I assume) I've spent a long career being a software developer and interacting with software developers.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#439

Post by badgersnake »

exadeci wrote: post #394
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…

My high school back in France was offering 1000euros each to girls who'd pick STEMs for the last 2 years of their studies and had 12/20 or more on their final exam. Out of 200 girls 2 picked it, there's only so much you can do but the truth is most women prefer to work with people.

Working with people is pretty important in tech.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#440

Post by petsfed »

jimbokun wrote: post #415
judahmeek wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There's basically two kinds of pay gap:

1. Group A is literally paid less than Group B, for the same work. This is much less of an issue today than it used to be, but its still an issue.

2. Members of group A are promoted much less often than members of Group B, so while a Group A member in a high-earning position has commensurate pay to a member of Group B in the same position, there are simply fewer Group A members reaching that position. This is the more common, and frankly more pernicious, problem.

The very first link in the recommended google search says that only 25% of C-suite members are women, yet women make up 35% of all tech employees. In other words, a smaller percentage of women are even reaching the highest levels than men. That's pretty clearly the 2nd kind of wage gap. Now, that might because of selective promotion practices (which you discredit), but it might also be that women are laid off 60% more often than men, so they have to restart their seniority journey at a different company.

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