Women: Learn to Program This Summer • Hacker News Board

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#441

Post by jpindar » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 11:35 PM UTC

pacala wrote: post #26

jakelazaroff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We never really valued skills over demographics — it's just much less visible where it benefits a dominant group. Consider that the percentage of VC deals with female-founded companies is 5.4% and yet they receive only 2.2% of VC dollars [1]. This has held true for over a decade: the average female founders have received less than their average male counterparts. But for some reason, there aren't many people complain…

Never heard of an open and blatant 'women need not apply' in the 20 years I've been in the US. Not in the universities, not in the workplace, not anywhere. Not sure about NFL policies, though there aren't that many 6 foot 250 pounds fit women out there. Pretty sure there is no VC advertising 'we will fund no women' out there, if it were there would be a huge press coverage. And yet, the OP is openly and blatant 'men…

The NFL does allow women to apply, and one has tried, though that appeared to be just a publicity stunt.

There are a few women who play college football, and they are eligible to apply in the more traditional manner. With college experience and professional coaching it's not completely impossible that they could make it, probably as kickers or punters, who don't need as much upper body strength as other positions.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#442

Post by dinglejungle » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 11:38 PM UTC

yep8883 wrote: post #420

manfredo wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 35% of my company's tech hires we're women in Q1, as compared to an industry representation of 20%. 39% of new grad hires we're women when tech grads were about 20% women. When women join the company they received additional mentorship and leadership opportunities that are exclusive to women. They are also promoted at higher rates than men (albeit slightly). This is in addition to the explicitly discriminatory h…

Many studies have found significant bias in favor of women" which studies? I think you are basing your opinion solely on anecdotes from your company/bubble. Women are underrepresented in tech - just go any tech conference and see for yourself. Are women not as smart as men when it comes to tech? Or are there barriers to entry for women?

> Are women not as smart as men when it comes to tech? Or are there barriers to entry for women?

Those are not the only options.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#443

Post by jlebar » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 11:39 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #373

CptFribble wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Over 35% of my company's tech hires we're women in Q1, as compared to an industry representation of 20%. 39% of new grad hires we're women when tech grads were about 20% women. When women join the company they received additional mentorship and leadership opportunities that are exclusive to women. They are also promoted at higher rates than men (albeit slightly). This is in addition to the explicitly discriminatory h…

What about this situation makes you think that white and Asian men are privileged as compared to women?

What fraction of companies would you estimate have policies similar to yours?

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#444

Post by lostdog » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 11:41 PM UTC

wtdata wrote: post #343

DanBC wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's interesting, all top results in Google for "affirmative action in medicine" are about ethnicity, not gender [1] (same for psychology), can you point me to the source where it's something normal for men as well? [1] https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=affirmative+action+in+...

30 seconds of Googling found this and many other examples: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-physician-rel...

If you include nursing you'll find even more examples.

There are so many poor arguments against diversity efforts that should be retired.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#445

Post by DoreenMichele » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 11:48 PM UTC

kevinskii wrote: post #432

DoreenMichele wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my personal experience and what I can guess about hackers I've talked to for instance on IRC, that's how most guys learned it : the web is full of resources for whoever wants to learn. I would love to learn to code. It's the reason I originally joined HN closing in on a decade ago. (Proof: my first post, the day I joined: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=713015 ) But I have found that one barrier to me getti…

> I really don't know how to adequately describe the ginormous Wall of China style deafening silence that faces me and that helps keep me poor, unable to figure out coding and a zillion other things that drive me crazy. I genuinely do wish you success. But I've been complicit in this wall of silence for a long time, and I make no apologies for that. Your comment history suggests that any good faith attempt to engage…

Your comment history suggests that any good faith attempt to engage with you will most likely be futile.

It would be nice if more people would make an effort to engage me in good faith rather than blame me for my lack of traction.

I'm quite confident that I have gotten whatever traction I do have due to being very reasonable in the face of a mountain of crazy-making BS.

It winds up being a damned if I do, damned if I don't situation.

For the record, in response to my comments here today, someone emailed me privately to offer an hour of their time this weekend to discuss my desire to learn to code. Hopefully that's a sign of better things to come.

I'm noting it to say there are, in fact, options beyond refusing to engage me or blaming me (or other women, people of color, etc). I'm stating it for the benefit of anyone wondering what they can do about such issues.

I'm very well aware that it's difficult to engage someone who is angry and complaining. But not pointing out the barriers to participation also doesn't foment change.

I wish it worked to just show up and participate as if my gender was irrelevant. But the truth is I did that initially and the result was souch push back, I went digging to figure out why. And that's the reason I know I'm "prominent" for a woman here. Because I was making waves and it was coming back to bite me at a time when I was nowhere near having enough karma for the leaderboard.

I would love to have zero reason to bitch about sexism on HN. It was never anything I wanted to talk about. I just wanted to participate in conversation and learn to code and further my projects, just like the guys here do. And that proved impossible.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#446

Post by manfredo » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 11:49 PM UTC

jlebar wrote: post #443

manfredo wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 35% of my company's tech hires we're women in Q1, as compared to an industry representation of 20%. 39% of new grad hires we're women when tech grads were about 20% women. When women join the company they received additional mentorship and leadership opportunities that are exclusive to women. They are also promoted at higher rates than men (albeit slightly). This is in addition to the explicitly discriminatory h…

What about this situation makes you think that white and Asian men are privileged as compared to women? What fraction of companies would you estimate have policies similar to yours?

I can only talk about my experience in the SF Bay area, but these policies don't seem too out of place. Some of my co-workers go a step further and claim that companies are racist and sexist if they don't use policies like this.

Public figures also agree. Bloomberg's Emily Chang - one of San Francisco's most prominent tech reporters - encouraged adopting explicit reservation systems for women. Even though this is totally illegal in the United States.

I'll admit that at the end of the day I'm only one data point and that maybe I fell in with an especially progressive group. But this is what I'm seeing.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#447

Post by epicureanideal » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 11:57 PM UTC

Grustaf wrote: post #354

anisppp wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same can be said about medicine.

Doctors are not socially awkward, it’s much more fun for a normal person to hang out with medical students than with programmers. Who could possibly feel welcome in an industry filled with awkward, mostly introverted geeks?

The "awkward" stereotype does not describe most software engineers I've encountered in my career. Even "introverted" only applies to somewhat more than the average percentage in the rest of society, in my experience.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#448

Post by Valmar » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 11:59 PM UTC

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.

Probably because in tech, merit is what matters quite a bit.

Merit is... what skills can you personally bring to the table that can help? In a meritocracy, no-one cares about your race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Diversity of skillsets matter more than diversity of . The former is useful, the latter is basically meaningless.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#449

Post by tracker1 » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 12:08 AM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #421

tracker1 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As to #2, is it bias when the candidate pool is self-selecting? I mean, generally we're talking about an industry where a self-starter can learn, get their foot in the door and build a career. Every actual study I've seen actually indicates bias in favor of women. The fact that the candidate pool is so unbalanced to me seems to indicate an issue in education or no issue at all (self-selecting), not corporate hiring.

But not everybody is a self starter. We also have a ton of people who were nudged in this direction and men get those nudges far more often. I certainly didn't learn software totally independent of other structures. Both my parents were software engineers. I had toys (marketed at boys) that encouraged creativity with computers. I had teachers who encouraged me to work in software. Etc etc.

But those nudges are LONG before the hiring process, which as I mention seems to be biased in favor of women in the field. Education and other bits take a different approach.

Media changes:

* Don't show techs/ops and programmers as interchangeable in practice * Don't make techs or programmers look uncool * Show more diverse techs and programmers in roles * Don't dumb down smart female characters (some seasons of Arrow) * Don't turn smart female tech characters out of tech (Daisy on Agents of Shield)

Education Changes:

I'm not sure here, between K-12 vs >12, as I really think better normalization in media would go a long way. I also think actual gaming with broader appeal is helping a lot too.

I do find it interesting that given college women outnumber men by almost 2:1 that the majority of STEM and more specifically CS graduates are men. I think that colleges really need to look at their own practices here more and that cuts both ways. I find a lot of modern progressive feminist extremism to be far different than any classic goal of equal opportunity which is disenfranchising.

Re: Women: Learn to Program This Summer

#450

Post by manfredo » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 12:09 AM UTC

ajiang wrote: post #58

EDIT: To clarify that the money is going directly to private individuals, as per Austen. Incredible, thanks for putting your money where your values are @jl. As for the numerous comments in this post around reverse sexism / reverse discrimination: 1. This is a private individual giving personal capital to other private individuals, supporting a personal cause. It is hard to both claim principles of free market and ra…

> Private companies making hiring decisions are correcting for an indefinite history of bias. That doesn't mean they're hiring unqualified individuals, simply that they're making sure they put in measure to correct for biases and can identify individuals with the great qualifications that in the past would have been past up due to arbitrary euphemisms for gender / racial bias like 'bad culture fit'.

Perhaps at some companies but not at mine. We do deny employment on the basis of sex and race, in order to increase percentages of women and URM. It's not just including women and URM that would otherwise be left out. It's also about making that a significant chunk of qualified white and Asian males don't get offers.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19464944