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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

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think saying women like her are enslaved is itself misogyny Fully agree. I would not change anything in my comment above nevertheless. It is not about the women who have and make the choice. We are not in the world yet, where this would be the default assumption.

At least in the US, according to [0], around 67% of women with children under 18 who are not employed prefer that. Among women with children, a higher proportion of women who do work would prefer not to than the proportion of women who do not work and would prefer to. It appears that most women with children have the working status that they prefer, but if you had to guess that someone was unhappy about their situati…

> Among women with children, a higher proportion of women who do work would prefer not to than the proportion of women who do not work and would prefer to

1. Just a reminder: women who stay at home with children do work and it is wrong to say otherwise.

2. As I pointed out already numerous times here in other comments, those polls are just numbers. You cannot simply draw a conclusion that if there exists some gender-based preference, it’s ok. Without answers and analysis why it’s just another bad research. And there’s A LOT of reasons, why those numbers may not reflect happiness and accomplishment, but rather a safe choice and avoidance. Please, do the proper research. I don’t think you are adequately informed on this matter.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#492
post #490
post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I learned how to do them in college ... I have the opposite experience: when learning physics, math was really difficult to negotiate with the professor, because it is mathematically correct or not. They had their table that said "if they have done this, X points, otherwise 0", which is an exactly equivalent system as the one where your grade corresponds to the number of test your software passes. It was easier to…

Thanks again for responding. You gave me a lot to think about. It seems like there isn’t much daylight between our positions, and in any case I’m sure nobody else is reading, so I’ll wrap it up here for any future spelunkers. I think I’m on solid ground asserting that it’s common knowledge that most proofs have errors. The reason is that professional mathematicians tell us so. Here’s Terry Tao: https://terrytao.wordp…

Your initial claim is that learning math is more "people oriented" because you can discuss with the professor and "errors" in math are subjective, while learning coding is more "thing oriented" because the debugger will blankly return yes or no.

But now, you are providing article that show that math is not a matter of convincing people. In Terry Tao's article, he does not say: there are what I think is error but it's subjective, he says: there are errors, it's a fact, the article does not pass my "compiler". Same with Singh and MathOverflow: in both cases, the existence of errors is not subjective: when an error is discovered, they are demonstrated, and they exist or not.

You also point to something interesting: there is a lot of undiscovered errors. In this aspect, it's difficult to claim that it is not WORSE in computer science, where bugs and vulnerabilities are discovered YEARS after the software was released, and that we are pretty sure there are plenty of bugs not discovered yet.

The compiler will sometimes crash or complain if there is a logic inconsistency. That's exactly the same with math. All your articles and examples are example of bugs that exist despite the math compiler, the same way tons of bugs still exist after the code has been successfully compiled.

The example of "NO" and "NOR" is pretty good, because despite what you say, developers continue to make such mistake. This example is a type mistake, and you have EXACTLY the same mistake in math if you name 2 different unknowns representing different "type" (for example one is a scalar and one is a function) with the same symbol. What happens is that your equations "do not compile" really early and you discover it yourself quite fast.

> I don’t know what you’re trying to assert.

Well, the examples that you gave demonstrate that you are wrong. You were pretending that errors in math are subjective, they are a people-oriented subject and you can convince the professor it's correct even if it is not. All you have presented demonstrate this is not true.

I know it's difficult for you, you really want that computer science is somehow magically less people-oriented than math. It's cognitive dissonance, it's needed for you because you cannot accept that some data does not fit with your model "there is less women in computer science because there is always less women when it's less people-oriented" (the data in question is that another very similar field, as less people-oriented, is having a statistically significant different proportion of women, so it shows there is at least something more at play here). It would be so convenient to explain that the cultural problem in computer science communities and mentality are just "natural" and "explained" rather than something that could have been avoided. But that is just not the case.

(edit: the last link you provide is also quite revealing, with sentences like: "I was shocked to learn that the binary search program that Bentley proved correct and subsequently tested in Chapter 5 of Programming Pearls contains a bug. Once I tell you what it is, you will understand why it escaped detection for two decades.". They are not talking about a mathematical error: the mathematical logic is correct. They are talking about the fact that it fails if the sum value is higher than (2^32-1). I thought you were saying that computer science is different than math because the compiler would have said "no". What I see is that computer science and math are very similar: some errors don't pass the basic tests, and some errors pass the basic tests)

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the US, according to [0], around 67% of women with children under 18 who are not employed prefer that. Among women with children, a higher proportion of women who do work would prefer not to than the proportion of women who do not work and would prefer to. It appears that most women with children have the working status that they prefer, but if you had to guess that someone was unhappy about their situati…

> Among women with children, a higher proportion of women who do work would prefer not to than the proportion of women who do not work and would prefer to 1. Just a reminder: women who stay at home with children do work and it is wrong to say otherwise. 2. As I pointed out already numerous times here in other comments, those polls are just numbers. You cannot simply draw a conclusion that if there exists some gender-…

That sentence had a complicated enough structure as it is and the meaning is clear. My direct experience with such a woman is that in most contexts she says she "doesn't work", and it's understood that that means labor force participation. You'll find up thread that I said "her work... is still more exhausting than mine".

The statistics agree with our lived experience. There's also lots of reasons why those numbers would reflect happiness and accomplishment, which I've tried to provide some color to. They're not slaves, and in fact the stats show they have almost 50% more free time and get more sleep[0]. So they actually have more time and energy to pursue their interests, and they have pretty much complete autonomy in their work in the home. Because of that increased autonomy, their accomplishments are also more directly attributable to them.

Staying at home is not the safe choice. If you're middle class, you'll face all sorts of microagressions for it (e.g. people acting like raising bright, well-adjusted kids is not a substantial accomplishment while writing CRUD software is). You also don't have a career to fall back on if the marriage fails or your spouse dies, so it's actually high risk and requires trust and planning. But it can also carry substantial rewards, and the type of person who would be high achieving in a STEM career is also the type of person who is likely to be a high achieving parent, so they are likely to see those rewards.

Without more info, why would you assume women's stated preferences are wrong? Especially if you restrict to women who are capable of a STEM career? Based on my direct experience with a woman who got her MRS in math, I'd expect that actually they are quite intelligent and self-aware, and are quite good at achieving their goals.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2014/04/08/chapter...

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Among women with children, a higher proportion of women who do work would prefer not to than the proportion of women who do not work and would prefer to 1. Just a reminder: women who stay at home with children do work and it is wrong to say otherwise. 2. As I pointed out already numerous times here in other comments, those polls are just numbers. You cannot simply draw a conclusion that if there exists some gender-…

That sentence had a complicated enough structure as it is and the meaning is clear. My direct experience with such a woman is that in most contexts she says she "doesn't work", and it's understood that that means labor force participation. You'll find up thread that I said "her work... is still more exhausting than mine". The statistics agree with our lived experience. There's also lots of reasons why those numbers w…

> The statistics agree with our lived experience

The statistics without explanation mean nothing. They are just numbers. You need to show causal link before making any conclusions from that data. Interestingly, the same research you quote includes some information about it with indication that stay-at-home life is dictated by circumstances:

> The recent rise in stay-at-home motherhood is the flip side of a dip in female labor force participation after decades of growth. The causes are debated, but survey data do not indicate the dip will become a plunge, as most mothers say they would like to work, part time or full time.

Apparently, this is the stated preference. Your personal situation is also mentioned there (highly educated and affluent "opt-out" mothers are said to be "relatively few").

>Especially if you restrict to women who are capable of a STEM career? Based on my direct experience with a woman who got her MRS in math, I'd expect that actually they are quite intelligent and self-aware

Sounds pretty much sexist. 99% of population are capable of STEM career, it is only a matter of motivation, education and avoiding prejudice. Intelligent and self-aware women can spot toxic environment faster and make career choices where they can avoid them. Being "opt-out" mother is often such a choice. I have seen examples of it many times.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sentence had a complicated enough structure as it is and the meaning is clear. My direct experience with such a woman is that in most contexts she says she "doesn't work", and it's understood that that means labor force participation. You'll find up thread that I said "her work... is still more exhausting than mine". The statistics agree with our lived experience. There's also lots of reasons why those numbers w…

> The statistics agree with our lived experience The statistics without explanation mean nothing. They are just numbers. You need to show causal link before making any conclusions from that data. Interestingly, the same research you quote includes some information about it with indication that stay-at-home life is dictated by circumstances: > The recent rise in stay-at-home motherhood is the flip side of a dip in fem…

You're suggesting there is not a casual link between having a work situation and reporting that they prefer that work situation? Obviously some situations are dictated by circumstances; the Gallup poll indicated ~1/3 of women don't have their preference in both directions. But most women report preferring their situation in both directions. Why is their stated preference under question? And especially why is it only under question on one direction?

The link you quoted didn't seem to actually mention that part-time bit, but it does say:

> Marital status is also strongly linked to views about the ideal work situation, and the gap in views between married and unmarried mothers has widened significantly in recent years. Among unmarried mothers, about half (49%) say working full time would be their ideal. This is up dramatically from 26% who said the same in 2007. Only 23% of married mothers today say their ideal situation would be to work full time, basically unchanged from 2007.

Which seems even more suggestive to me: the wider stats are muddled by single moms where it wouldn't make sense to stay home. When you focus on married moms, only 23% want full time work. Basically, they don't actually want to climb the career ladder.

Saying 99% of people are capable of a STEM career is totally out of touch with reality. 15% would be optimistic (and would probably require an inclusive definition of "science"). For a large portion of the population, technical subjects are actually quite difficult.

Someone who would counterfactually be in a highly compensated career is generally going to be in the highly educated affluent bucket almost tautologically. They are also going to have a similarly situated social circle where they can meet a spouse. They're exactly the demographic that's capable of being in the "opt-out" group, which was my point up thread: girls in STEM have the option of marrying a guy in STEM and living an affluent life as a homemaker.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#496
post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I thought this thread was dead, and the topic is cursed besides that, but since this comment is obliquely referencing mine, I’ll post this: the two most prestigious white-collar fields are medicine and law, which both used to be more male-centric than programming ever was, and in those fields we see a steady upward trend of participation by women over the past few decades. I've only talked to 0.001% of programmers. B…

Medicine and law both actively and aggressively intervened to increase participation of women. Describing the distinctive things those fields did to address their gender biases used to be one of Rayiner Hashem's beats on this site; if you search his comments, you'll find he can explain what happened here better than I can.

So, no, I don't think this works as an explanation any more than the idea that mathematics is somehow more subjective than computer science.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#497
post #51

At the risk of posting a reflexive comment, what should we be doing here? It seems like everything has unintended consequences (not on a cost-benefit basis): - Minority affinity groups pull people from majority groups and decrease integration. - Anti-discrimination/sexism/etc. movements often add social barriers to interactions (e.g. things I do within my identity group would be misperceived if done across) - Affirma…

To tackle your question somewhat obliquely: 67% of veterinarians in the US are women, according to this link. https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/reports-statistics/mark... The imbalance is even more acute than that, because the profession has been trending towards a women-dominated workforce for several decades. There aren't as many veterinarians as there are software developers, but it's a well-paying job. Does th…

I suspect you are fine with it for the same reason I am:you understand that women historically were kept out of the workforce.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The statistics agree with our lived experience The statistics without explanation mean nothing. They are just numbers. You need to show causal link before making any conclusions from that data. Interestingly, the same research you quote includes some information about it with indication that stay-at-home life is dictated by circumstances: > The recent rise in stay-at-home motherhood is the flip side of a dip in fem…

You're suggesting there is not a casual link between having a work situation and reporting that they prefer that work situation? Obviously some situations are dictated by circumstances; the Gallup poll indicated ~1/3 of women don't have their preference in both directions. But most women report preferring their situation in both directions. Why is their stated preference under question? And especially why is it only…

>The link you quoted didn't seem to actually mention that part-time bit

It does. I copied the text. Full report consists of multiple pages, not just the one you quoted.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#499
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... sure, on the other hand way less competition, and smaller companies can also simply go ahead hire promising juniors and do on the job training.

> and smaller companies can also simply go ahead hire promising juniors and do on the job training. Not before FAANG hired the promising juniors first, FAANG are very willing to give on the job training. Or at least were a couple of years ago.

That seems to imply that they singlehandedly (or fivehandedly) exhausted the promising pool and kept it dry since! But that's not the case, right? So whatever they did - while definitely important at the margin does not completely change the bulk of the market.

We can look at their employment numbers, they did not hire millions of people, yet there are millions of capable juniors globally eager to jump head-first into software development.

Bootcamps closed because hiring slowed down. (Because ZIRP ended, everyone doubted that the Fed can do a soft landing, and on top of that the certified bubble of AI-mania meant that companies increased spending on buzzword driven development, and ... on top of all this increasing cloud costs and slowing growth meant that no one felt the need to hire juniors.)

Oh, and of course due to the amazing tech demos where this or that LLM created a site/game in React in a few minutes, or even issued a PR, the meme of end of coding led to a pretty significant belief about the end of juniors.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#500
post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loosen them how? By importing poor, uneducated people and putting them to work as software engineers? Japan is already stupidly easy to immigrate to if you're an experienced software engineer, probably easier than any country in the world. The main obstacle is the language barrier, but there are a fair number of companies recruiting foreign engineers and offering workplaces that use English, because there's a huge sh…

Has that shortage actually been driving up salaries? From what I know, Japan has the worst "SWE Salary:Cost of living" ratio anywhere in the developed world.

Citation needed. My salary here is great by local standards. If you're comparing to the US, don't. Salaries in the US for SWE are much higher than anywhere else.
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